Sunday, November 11, 2012

balance

I stopped
shelling pecans about two weeks ago. My hands just couldn't take it,
cutting stencils for 3 days and shelling pecans for 4 days, and since
I already have 10 pounds worth of shelled pecans, I figured I would
wait til I finish all the stencils for the mountain wall.

I'm still
picking them up though, almost three boxes worth and still when you
look up in the trees you can see pecans.

One day, several
weeks after the pecans began to fall, when I leaned down to pick up a
nut, I felt a twinge in my back. I'm right handed and I carry the
bucket in my left hand leaning down and slightly sideways to pick up
the nuts with my right hand.

After doing this
over and over for several weeks, my body was telling me that it was
getting out of balance. So I decided to switch the bucket to my
right hand and pick up pecans with my left hand. Voila! No pain.
Only my right handedness is so entrenched that I would notice after a
while that I had, unconsciously, switched the bucket back to my left
hand.

That first week,
I had to make a conscious effort to be aware of what hand I was
using. After a couple of weeks, it didn't matter which hand I
carried the bucket in as things had balanced themselves out so long
as I periodically switched from one side to the other.

It reminded me
how important balance is not only in the human body but in life.

One of the
guiding principles for my life has always been 'all things in
moderation' and I seemed able to apply it towards all things except
my work. When I am working on a project, I tend to become totally
absorbed and work for hours on end with no breaks.

As long as I was
young with a resilient body, I never suffered any ill effects from
this tendency. About 12 years ago though, we were working on a job
that consisted of 10 panels approx. 5' x 6' each that made up two 25'
long walls. It was a beautiful job and we were elated to be done and
have it installed. After months of working intently, intensely, and
non-stop, I was finally able to relax. And a week later my back
clenched up so badly that I was all but immobilized. I had, for
months, been stressing muscles, holding positions in one direction,
without ever engaging the opposing muscles and now I was paying the
price.

I'd like to say
that after a week or so all was well but it was not and I feared it
was perhaps a permanent injury. Sitting, standing, bending, lifting
anything was extremely painful. Working in the yard was impossible
for more than 5 minutes. It did, over about a year, get
incrementally better but it did not heal until I joined a gym and
worked on strengthening my core muscles, front and back.

So.

I was out there
a couple of weeks ago, feeling pressed for time, a little stressed.
There is so much I needed (and still need) to get accomplished by the
end of this month, and by the middle of December as well. That's our
target date for finishing up the mountain wall.

I was feeling
guilty and thinking, as I wandered around enjoying the temperate
weather and idly picking up the fallen nuts, that I should quit
wasting my time and get in there and get to work on the waxes or
filling the molds or whatever particular task awaited me.

Fortunately, my
previous thoughts about balance reminded me that this activity was
just as important as the intensely focused activity of work in regard
to my personal and physical well being.

I have tried to
keep, in the conscious part of my brain, the warning of Spider Woman
when she was teaching Wandering Girl how to weave:

"But
there is one danger that you must always be aware of. The Navajo
People must walk the Middle Way, which means that they must respect
boundaries and try to keep their lives in balance. They should not
do too much of anything. You must promise not to weave for too long,
or a terrible thing will happen to you." from
The Magic Of Spider Woman
by Lois Duncan

For Weaving
Woman nee Wandering Girl, that was becoming trapped in her most
perfect blanket. For me it was a grave injury to my body.

I was led to
this story, I believe, by Spider Woman after she made herself known
to me on a vacation through the Navaho Nation several years after we
finished the job that got me so out of balance.

You are very wise. Workaholism is a real thing. It's seen as such a virtue. I think during young adulthood, why not? People should go for it. However, at our age, we must force ourselves to put down the pecan bucket, or back slowly away from the stencils, for awhile until we're renewed. Thanks, sis-star.

This rings with touches of Taoism, and your words are good ones for me to hear right now.

I've had problems with my right knee for over a year now and have started having shooting pains in the left leg. Compensation. And so I've started thinking of awareness as an integral part to the balance you speak of. Kind of obvious I guess, but personally, I forget.Thanks Ellen.

I have picked those nuts until my fingers were ragged and really hurt.It is still a favorite.My grandfather was backlogged about 3 years on a cracker he made for pecans out of wood and a wide rubbberband.It made halves real well.